The Upheaval: Twitter’s Solution to Social Media Domination
$44 billion is the notional figure that is creating all the waves in the world. Yes, that is the sum Elon Musk has paid to acquire Twitter and take full ownership of the conglomerate. The past week has been eventful in Twitter with Elon Musk taking complete ownership as CEO of Twitter and causing major upheavals in the organization as a starting point. He went on to fire many senior leaders in Twitter and almost removed the entire organization in India as well. This can be attributed to the losses that Twitter is making and also a typical company acquisition move where layoffs are a common place when a new management comes in.
Elon Musk is always associated with the words “maverick” and “bold” and he has not disappointed in this episode of Twitter takeover as well. Over the past week, other than the organizational changes, he has made a couple of announcements which shout doom in front of the public, but the reality is a well thought out process to establish social media domination. Let’s look at what these announcements are.
1. Users need to pay $8/month to subscribe to Twitter Blue and have a verified blue tick: At present, verified blue tick is granted to public figures to ensure there are no fake profiles and goes through an exhaustive process of checks before being granted. With Elon Musk’s announcements, anyone can end up having a blue tick provided they pay $8/month as part of the Twitter Blue plan where users are also shown lesser ads and their replies and tweets are pushed at the top of the feeds.
Verdict: Risky proposition
There are no well thought out established checks to eliminate fake profiles and allowing anyone to have a verified profile will allow even common man to influence the public. While this is a good thing, it could also end up undermining the public figures leading to disgruntlement. There will be no authenticity or inspiration to follow and could potentially lead to lot of provocative communication as well. Twitter will have to closely monitor the free speech and have controls to check for fake accounts which are trying to impersonate the public figures.
2. Creators can monetize content on Twitter: Social media has become a rage because it has not only given a voice to the people and entertained them, but also created employment by allowing creators to influence the public and get monetised for the same. While Twitter had a super follower program, it still didn’t monetise creators to the extent an Instagram or TikTok would. With this announcement of Elon Musk, content creators will also shift to Twitter due to its ability to influence a different section of public and greater activity among the public figures.
Verdict: Great Move
This is a very tactical move and its success will go a long way in paving the path for Twitter to establish social media domination. Elon Musk loves disrupting every field he enters, and social media is where he wants leave his footprints. While Instagram is still a rage, it is soon approaching the saturation stage of its product lifecycle and that’s where Twitter will look to cash in with monetization for content creators.
3. Long form texts will soon be a reality: Twitter has always prided itself in terms of the limitation on the number of characters that can be entered in a tweet. Soon, Twitter will allow long form texts to be part of the tweet. This will go a long way in addressing a major concern of people reading through 10 tweets to understand the content. On the other hand, it is moving away from its USP of conveying information in limited words, but the present generation is getting more and more inquisitive about content, and this was something waiting in the wings to happen.
Verdict: Adaptive and Good Move
This is a very adaptive move by Elon Musk to ensure that the target segment is addressed in the right manner and understand why Instagram is a rage amongst content followers. Sometimes people want to understand the whole context of the content and twitter was impeding that. This will only simplify things for the public and act as the major alternative (if not better) than the other social media giants for content and following major developments in the world.
Twitter was a bubble waiting to be burst with no clear direction of reporting the gains it promised during Jack Dorsey’s time. Elon Musk is bringing sudden changes which are indeed scary to the public and the business fraternity, but in the longer run , like all his gambles, Twitter will go on to challenge the social media giant Meta and establish itself as a market leader instead of being a follower. With Elon Musk coming, there will be more disruptive changes. Some will work and some will fall right on the floor, but that’s the beauty of business where not everything will work in your favor. It’s about maximizing the chances and minimizing the risks by taking playing well thought out gambles.
